Friday, June 23, 2017

CST is lucky to have incredible engineers working throughout our company. In honor of International Women in Engineering Day, we spoke to some of the women who contribute to CST’s success about what they love about being engineers and how male allies in the field can support gender parity in engineering in the future.

What is your favorite thing about being an engineer?

Irina: Diversity – I never get bored in my work as an engineer. Engineering is a combination of precision (but not as much as in mathematics), creativity (but somewhat different from an artist’s), and detective work (“which one of the myriad of tiny technical details in my device is to blame that it doesn’t yet work perfectly?”)Apra: The best part about being an engineer is to be able to conceive new ideas, design and implement them to make our lives better.

We are witnessing tremendous technological growth, and an important ingredient of this is curiosity. Being curious about how things work, why they work, can they work in a better way, how can a certain design be improved, etc. is what helps us progress.

One of the quickest ways to see if an idea would work is by creating a virtual prototype of the design; or in other words, creating a simulation model that represents how the design would work. I enjoy being able to simulate the design ideas and suggest whether an idea would work or if there is something that can be done to improve the design. This leads to not only a reduction of production cost, but also a faster design cycle.Tracey: Engineering is being paid to solve puzzles and I love solving puzzles. I love the interdisciplinary nature of the work I do.

The theme of INWED this year is “men as allies”, what is a way that men can support women working as engineers or getting degrees in an engineering field?

Irina: I find it difficult to give a general answer to this question, but I can give a few examples from my life.

I was lucky to have a father who often asked me to help him when doing small repairs at home, so I knew even as a little girl how to bang in a nail, change a bulb, or what different types of pliers are good for.

My uncle convinced me that studying engineering is not in contradiction with following my literary and liberal-arts interests: “with a safe job and a good salary in your pocket”, he said, “what prevents you from learning foreign languages, write books, or paint?”

Later on, I learned that some male professors or colleagues tend to think of women in engineering in extreme ways – either “this much is still not enough” (and for them, it’s never enough), or exactly the opposite “in your case, this little will suffice”. I am extremely grateful to those several male professors, colleagues, mentors, who asked of me exactly the same as from my male colleagues, not more, but also not less.Apra: I think there are quite a few ways men can be allies. By being more supportive at the domestic front, by fostering a respectful environment and creating more opportunities for women to take up more engineering roles; are a few ways in which men can support women.

Tracey: If you’re a dad and an engineer then build a rocket with your daughter, encourage her to do math and show her how math is the language we use to understand and analyze the world around us. When you talk to your daughter or son, try to use “he” and “she” interchangeably to describe engineers and scientists. As a boss - call on the opinion (especially in meetings) of your female employees or at least have turns – research shows women are constantly interrupted/talked over; give her the time to be heard. If she has good ideas or did good work then laud her publically if possible. Believe she can do it and give her tasks that stretch her. Women wait to do things when they feel they have full competence; men take risks and challenges and use them as opportunities for growth – this is because society is more forgiving of rookie mistakes with men. I would like more men to see and understand this bias.

Are there any publications, workshops, webinars or other work of yours you'd like to share with readers of the CST blog?

Irina: The article that might be of most interest for readers of CST blog is probably a paper I co-authored on Time Domain methods called “It’s About Time”.

Tracey: I will be participating in a New Features 2017 workshop in Framingham, MA (Boston office) on the 13th July. I will also be participating in the “online training series” over the summer geared to new users and college students.

Thursday, June 22, 2017

Exhibitions and conferences provide indispensable opportunities for CST experts to meet with our users and expand our reach. Our experts speak at events around the world, sharing the importance to EM simulation in the many industries that use our software. next week we are hosting two workshops, in London and Rome, which will give our customers a chance to improve their skills, learn from experts and have the opportunity to speak with our support staff person to person.

Exhibitions

For more than 30 years, Sensors Expo & Conference has established itself as North America's premier event focused exclusively on sensors and sensor-integrated systems. The conference is where you'll find the best in the sensors industry, along with new and innovative ways to jump start your sensor solutions. It's North America's largest and most comprehensive educational program that brings together thousands of engineering professionals all under one roof. Join thousands of leading engineers and innovators to see the latest sensing technologies and identify new ways to improve products and expand their capabilities using sensors. With over 300+ exhibitors, you will learn about "hot" and cutting-edge technology areas.

The world’s foremost conference on marine electromagnetics incorporating an exhibition and poster session. Today this sphere of science and technology is relevant to an ever-increasing number of applications and questions, from the oil and mineral exploration industries to military equipment, and from influences on marine life and materials to sophisticated measurement and modelling tools. As we continue to understand and exploit the marine environment, electromagnetic effects are becoming ever more widely applied. MARELEC uniquely attracts delegates from academic, industrial, theoretical, experimental and military backgrounds. We aim to and succeed in bringing together international experts from these many different areas to examine the status of both fundamental issues and applications of marine electromagnetic phenomena.

Visit us at booth #8

28th - 30th June 2017Prague, Czech Republic Organizing the International Radar Symposium 2017 (IRS 2017), the German Institute of Navigation (DGON) and the University of Defence in Brno continue a very successful sequence of Radar Symposia, which started in Germany in 1998. Due to the rapid development of technologies, radar technique is still an expanding technical and economical segment with practical applications both in civil and military areas. There will be a versatile exhibition of companies related to radar topics on site.

28th - 29th June 2017Munich, GermanyLASER World of PHOTONICS, is the international trade fair for Photonics Components, Systems and Applications. Together with the World of Photonics Congress, the fair unites research and industry and promotes the use and ongoing development in the Photonics industry. Every two years, key players and decision-makers come to Munich to meet at one of the industry’s most important marketplace. The fair gives participants from more than 70 countries a complete overview of all topics that pertain to photonics on 55,000 square meters of exhibition space.

Visits us in hall B1 at booth #573

CST Workshop Series 2017

27th June 2017London, United Kingdom

This workshop is will include Simulation for Antenna Design and Placement, Enhancing Antenna Design with CMA, a hands-on session simulating a dual patch antenna, and more. Registration is free, but space is limited.

27th June 2017Rome, Italy

Join us for an exciting opportunity to learn about the latest developments in 3D electromagnetic simulation. The CST® Workshop Series 2017 will give design and research engineers an insight into the latest 3D simulation technology for designing electromagnetic components as well as assembled systems using CST STUDIO SUITE® 2017. It will include presentations as well as live software demos that will be both beneficial for the novice as well as the experienced user.

Friday, June 16, 2017

Following the success of CST's recent bio-electromagnetic (bio-EM) workshops, we sat down with

Dr. Tilmann Wittig, Principal Engineer and Market Coordinator for bio-EM to share an introduction to this challenging and fascinating subject.

First, what do you do at CST?

I coordinate the “Bio-Electromagnetics” market here at CST. We refer to bio-EM whenever we simulate an EM source like e.g. a mobile phone, an MRI, a hearing aid or a pacemaker inside or nearby biological tissue, which in most cases will be a full or partial human body model. In other cases, we may also use animal models or just simplified homogeneous phantom models, representing a kind of average human tissue.

So, what is so special about simulating an EM problem containing tissues?

One major reason is that bio-EM is one of the few domains where measurement of electromagnetic fields is mostly not an option since we cannot, or at least don’t want to, put field probes into a living human. From a simulation point of view, we face the special challenge of having “wet” tissues with a high content of water that makes both the permittivity and the material losses quite high. In addition, we typically have to deal with complex shapes and various layers of materials with significantly differing properties. Depending on the type of application, these properties can have a severe impact on the device design and functionality. To make such devices work in the presence of complex human tissue distribution is often a challenge!What kinds of devices are being simulated?

MRI image: Courtesy of German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ)

We have two categories of devices we deal with: First, are devices we want to penetrate human tissue, that’s, for example, MRI or other imaging, pacemaker simulation, where the pacemaker is implanted, or any kind of implant for which there may be wireless charging. So, in that case, we want to be able to send an EM signal inside the body which is much more challenging than it may appear at first glance since high permittivity materials will reflect large amounts of the electromagnetic waves. The problem gets especially hard if we have several layers of biological tissue with very different permittivity e.g. from the skin, via fat and muscle to bone.

Second, we have devices where we just want to communicate in the presence of the body, like a mobile phone or various Bluetooth or soon IoT devices. With such devices, we’d be happy if nothing went inside the body because this means unwanted losses in the body due to penetration. That increases power assumption and affects the battery lifetime of the device but even worse: the problem is, we aren’t quite sure where that energy is placed and what effects it may cause inside the body. The only simulation can give us a hint how much power we have with a certain body position!

Due to the potential hazard, it is also a governmental requirement, every device that’s intended to work in or around the body needs a certificate of its SAR (Specific Absorption Rate) value. You’ll see what the SAR value is, for example, in the small print on your phone and the lower the value, the
better because less energy is going into your body.

Bio-EM is a challenging domain with a large variety of applications. It is important that a device which is intended to work inside or nearby the body is designed taking into consideration a body model to guarantee functionality in this environment, and that at the same time the power levels inside the body are well controlled. It’s interesting that these two kinds of optimization goals are contradictory. We have some customers who need penetration and they are trying to optimize to maximize the penetration like an MRI, and then we have customers who make mobile communication devices and they are optimizing for minimal penetration.

Dr. Tilmann Wittig

Stay tuned for part two of this interview, in which Dr. Wittig shares the most interesting medical innovations being developed with the help of bio-electromagnetic simulation.

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

We are looking forward to several fascinating workshops, including a dedicated filter workshop in Singapore, which will be followed the next day by filter training. See you next week!

CST Workshop Series 2017June 20Lisbon, Portugal

Join us for an exciting opportunity to learn about the latest developments in 3D electromagnetic simulation. The CST® Workshop Series 2017 will give design and research engineers an insight into the latest 3D simulation technology for designing electromagnetic components as well as assembled systems using CST STUDIO SUITE® 2017. It will include presentations as well as live software demos that will be both beneficial for the novice as well as the experienced user.

CST Filter WorkshopJune 21Singapore

Join us to learn about the latest developments in CST® for the design of filters. CST filter expert, Mr. Franz Hirtenfelder, will present both current technology and the newest developments in EM simulation, together with application examples relevant to the field. In this specialized workshop, we will cover design, synthesis, as well as multipaction, thermal and structural mechanics related to filter design. The workshop will include presentations as well as live software demonstrations which will benefit both novice and experienced users. This workshop is an excellent opportunity to meet people from industry, research, and universities working in the area of filter applications.There is also a one-day Filter training course on June 22, 2017.

CST Workshop Series 2017June 22Montpellier, France

Join us for an exciting opportunity to learn about the latest developments in 3D electromagnetic simulation. The CST® Workshop Series 2017 will give design and research engineers an insight into the latest 3D simulation technology for designing electromagnetic components as well as assembled systems using CST STUDIO SUITE® 2017. It will include presentations as well as live software demos that will be both beneficial for the novice as well as the experienced user.

Exhibitions

For its 21st conference, Pulsed Power is being held for the first time in the United Kingdom. The Pulsed Power Conference is a forum for the discussion of all aspects of the science, technology, and application of Pulsed Power.

CWIEME Berlin is the world's leading event for coil winding, electric motor, and transformer manufacturing technologies. With 21 years of heritage and more than 750 exhibitors presenting their latest products and technologies, it’s a great opportunity to expand business contacts and to find new solutions.

CST Filter TrainingJune 22Singapore, Singapore

Filters are one of the most important components in MW/RF industry. Their design is most challenging to meet the ever-growing requirements, particularly for bandpass filters with small factional bandwidths.Starting from a simple coaxial cavity type filter various tuning techniques using CST STUDIO SUITE® will be explored. A combination of 3D and circuit models team up with new built-in optimizers to efficiently tune bandpass filters. CST FilterDesigner 3D will greatly be of help during the tuning phases.CST filter expert, Franz Hirtenfelder, is coming to Singapore to conduct a one-day intensive filter training course.

Thursday, June 8, 2017

Exhibitions and conferences provide indispensable opportunities for CST staff to meet with our users and expand our reach. Our experts speak at events around the world, sharing the importance to EM simulation in the many industries that use our software. We also give workshops around the world, which gives our customers a chance to improve their skills, learn from experts and have the opportunity to speak with our support staff person to person. We look forward to seeing you next week, whether at an external event or one of our workshops.

Exhibitions

The “9th THz Days” and the annual meeting of the GDR Nano Tera MIR will be held in Dunkerque (Dunkirk, France), easily accessible with TGV connections to France and Europe. This harbor town centrally located between England, Belgium and Germany is an ideal place to welcome students, academics and industrial partners to discuss the latest developments in the field of Terahertz related Science and Technology.

Zuken Innovation World is the Zuken series of annual conferences that takes place at different venues around the globe. The conferences bring together industry professionals for networking, learning, and sharing of innovative ideas. Each event is structured around the common theme of innovation and is organized with the specific needs of the local Zuken communities in mind. Zuken Innovation World Italia will take place on June 13, 2017 in Bologna at the Savoia Hotel Regency.

Visit us at the CST booth!

The CST® Workshop Series 2017 will give design and research engineers an insight into the latest 3D simulation technology for designing electromagnetic components as well as assembled systems using CST STUDIO SUITE® 2017. It will include presentations as well as live software demos that will be both beneficial for the novice as well as the experienced user. In addition, CST will host a Q&A session during the workshop.

Tuesday, June 6, 2017

We are excited to announce that the latest version of our free student edition of CST STUDIO SUITE® 2017 is now available. CST Student Edition allows students to access our powerful visualization engine and some of our most advanced solvers for free. The latest version of Student Edition introduces you to the world of electromagnetic simulation, making Maxwell’s equations easier to understand than ever.

“In 2017 alone, CST STUDIO SUITE Student Edition has helped over eight thousand students around the world to study Maxwell’s equations and experiment with their applications and we hope to extend its reach even further in the future,” said Dr. Martin Timm, Director of Global Marketing, CST. “As part of our Academic Program, the CST STUDIO SUITE Student Edition helps prepare students for future careers in industry and research.”

The CST website features examples that show how classic textbook problems can be solved with simulation. Student Edition is a useful tool, both in the classroom and outside of it as it can be used for independent learning and practice by students of all levels.Read the press release here.

Friday, June 2, 2017

Next week, CST’s Marco Kunze will give a talk at the SAE Aviation Technology Forum in Shanghai. With the inaugural flight of C919, the first Chinese-built passenger jetliner, hopes are running high for the future of Chinese commercial aircraft. The nascent industry will need tools for design, and when it comes to aerospace, taking electromagnetic effects into consideration is extremely important.

Kunze, an expert on aerospace and E3, will be advocating for the use of software to simulate these effects in the design stage, which can reduce the number of rounds of costly prototypes needed.

If you are interested in simulation and aircraft design, check out our full interview with Dr. Kunze earlier this year.

"The move away from aluminum means aircraft can be lighter, but it also means the aircraft is less conductive and that has consequences. Composite materials offer less shielding from environmental EM, whether radar or lightning strikes. CST can model complex multilayer materials efficiently, making it possible to simulate these new materials accurately. The calculated power loss in the materials can then be used in a multiphysics simulation in order to investigate thermal effects during a lightning strike."- Marco Kunze.

About CST

CST is a market leader in providing 3D electromagnetic (EM) field simulation tools through a global network of sales and support staff and representatives. CST develops CST STUDIO SUITE, a package of high-performance software for the simulation of EM fields in all frequency bands. Its growing success is based on a combination of leading edge technology, a user-friendly interface and knowledgeable support staff. CST solutions are used by market leaders in a diverse range of industries, including aerospace, automotive, defense, electronics, healthcare and telecommunications. CST is part of SIMULIA, a Dassault Systèmes brand. Further information about CST is available on the web at www.cst.com.